Water District moves forward with repairs and rate increases

The agenda item originally scheduled for the last meeting on November 4, but was tabled due to bidding issues, was finally awarded to Layne Christensen, as their bid was the only one to meet all of the application requirements. The company has done quite a bit of work for the VVWD in the past, including a $5.7 million contract back in 2001 when they developed and built three of the district’s wells.

This new job will be for repairs on Well 27, which had begun pumping gravel pack in May of 2014. It was later determined that there was a hole in the casing near the screen, and that re-drilling and re-equipping the well would be the best solution and the district allocated $700,000 to the project. Eventually, staff decided that the re-drilling would be unnecessary. According to Tuesday’s background information, “Since the initial determination, staff gathered input from well drillers, consultants, and additional information from staff. The decision to abandon re-drilling the well was made and to move forward with additional cleaning of the casing and screen, sleeve the casing to the top of the screen (reducing the well diameter from 20” to 16”), and re-equipping the well with a new submersible pump (to replace the vertical turbine style). A revised cost estimate to perform this work is $300,000 (well within the $700,000 original budget).”

Three contractors had submitted bids for the project; Anzalone Pumps placed a bid of $195,750, Layne Christensen for $215,585 and Weber Water Resources for $334,270. Although Anzalone Pumps did have the lowest submitted bid, they had failed to acknowledge receipt of the third addendum from the water district and did not complete the list of Subcontractor/Material Suppliers section as required by NRS. The latter was also the reason for the district disqualifying Weber Water Resources. The board passed the motion to proceed with award and enter into a contract with Layne Christensen for the repairs on Well 27.

Next on the agenda was a presentation from Lane Peirce of Franson Civil Engineers for possible scenarios on how the district can build a redundancy line from one of the wells in Lincoln County over to the Pulte development area in Sun City. The line would be needed to serve the area should the initial main line failed in providing water to the Northwest area of Mesquite. The final recommendation from Peirce and FCE was to do a partially redundant line and build a concrete tank that would be buried, as to not impose any aesthetic problems to the community. The concrete tank, although initially more expensive, does have the potential to save the district money in the long run, as maintenance costs are quite lower than the steel tanks that are used throughout the Virgin Valley. The board members accepted the report and will be working with staff, FCE and Pulte to continue on these goals.

In other business, the VVWD Board also approved and awarded a bid award to Bulloch Brothers Engineering for the Mesa Boulevard pipe and vault replacement design and bidding. . The board passed the motion to authorize staff to complete the contract documents to allow BBE to proceed with design and bidding of the project not to exceed $18,000. Once the design is complete, the staff will put the project out to bid for the budgeted $400,000 project. According to district documents, the existing 12” and 10” ductile iron waterlines need to either be removed and disposed of or abandoned in place and pressure grouted. The area affected is from the Rock Springs I area to the intersection of Mesa Boulevard and Pioneer Boulevard.

Mike Chandler of Bowen, Collins & Associates presents a summarized view of the past year for the water district’s rate increase project. Photo by Stephanie Frehner.

Rounding out the meeting Tuesday was another summarized presentation from Mike Chandler of Bowen, Collins & Associates about the process the district has gone through this year with determining the best method of restructuring their billing meters and rate increases. The board plans to move forward with the legal notices to the public and businesses in the area for public hearings. It will be up to the new board coming in January to finish and implement the new rates.

The next meeting for the Virgin Valley Water District will be on Tuesday, December 2 at 5 p.m. in the board room at 500 Riverside Road. One item planned at this point for that night will be the General Manager’s Evaluation.